MAN GAVE NAMES TO ALL THE ANIMALS

Dylan fans extant in 1979 when his album Slow Train Coming was released won’t be able to keep his rasping voice out of their heads, but that shouldn’t impair their appreciation, or children’s, of this wonderfully imaginative visualization of the lyrics. The book starts off, logically enough, “in the beginning,” as a painted man stands on the skin of the earth and contemplates animal-shaped constellations in a starry sky. However, readers immediately realize that he’s standing on a photographed potato skin, an apt collage element, and that such combinations of painting and photograph will run through every page. A painted pig appears in the middle of a real bed of hay, while the collage horns of a bull look demonic in a full-bleed spread of brightest red, with a photographed crowd in the stands, and a matador who is offstage except for his brocade-wrapped arms and a wisp of his taunting cape. The images continue in a splendid visual extension of Dylan’s wry wit; children will delight in the chance to supply the final animal’s name themselves. (Picture book. 3-10)